Psychological research is working to uncover how addicted we are to our smartphones. In a recent study, there was physiological evidence to suggest that people not allowed to use their Iphones saw increases in anxiety and blood pressure. Scary. I think it is a reality that most of us are adapting to. The challenge of course is being able to make the choice to reduce usage or at least acknowledge “iphone separation anxiety.”

The researchers behind the study even go as far to say that iPhones are capable of becoming “extensions of our selves” — and that we fall into a negative physiological state when they’re far away. MU also suggests that when we’re doing important tasks, we shouldn’t be without our iPhones, as otherwise things go badly wrong.

Published on Jan. 8, the study reveals analysis that was carried out on 40 iPhone users to better understand the impact of smartphone usage and “specifically what happens when people are separated from their phones”.

MU explains its team asked iPhone users to sit at a computer cubicle in a media psychology lab. Participants were told the experiment was actually to test the reliability of a new wireless blood pressure cuff — when in fact they were under the microscope to see just how reliant on their iPhones they are in daily life.

The participants had to complete a word search puzzle — first with their iPhone by their side, MU writes, and then without it. The group was told their phones were causing “bluetooth interference” for the second half of the study when they had to part with their devices. Their heart rates and blood pressure levels were monitored — and the people also recorded their own levels of anxiety and how unpleasant they felt during both tasks.

Russel Clayton, a doctoral candidate at MU and lead author of the work, says on the MU website: “Our findings suggest that iPhone separation can negatively impact performance on mental tasks. Additionally, the results from our study suggest that iPhones are capable of becoming an extension of our selves such that when separated, we experience a lessening of ‘self’ and a negative physiological state.”

Clayton worked with the University of Oklahoma’s Glenn Leshner and a doctoral student from Indiana University-Bloomington on the project.

The team writes: “The researchers found a significant increase in anxiety, heart rate and blood pressure levels, and a significant decrease in puzzle performance when the participants were separated from their iPhones as compared to when iPhone users completed similar word search puzzles while in possession of their iPhones.”

The findings underpin just how addicted we’ve become to technology. Researchers say that being apart from your iPhone could result in “poor cognitive performance” when doing things like sitting tests, attending conferences, or taking part in meetings

One of the questions hospice professionals ask families is in relationship to future planning after the death of a loved one. This is obviously a sensitive topic, but perhaps there is more to the question than meets the eyes. Of course, this is a question one needs to know how to ask and is often something that can be garnered from regular conversation. For example, I visited someone who was discussing how he has a yearly fishing trip with some buddies and he was trying to figure out, as his wife was dying, whether he should cancel his trip. In the midst of this, the person shared that his wife had said to him that she doesn’t want him canceling and that she wants him to keep living after she is gone. This was something that offered him strength, and the will to keep on living. Perhaps his wife’s words will help ease his grieving process, knowing she would want him to keep living and enjoying. While future planning is not the only indicator, according to the study that is referenced below, future planning can be an indicator of complicated grief.

People suffering from complicated grief may have difficulty recalling specific events from their past or imagining specific events in the future, but not when those events involve the partner they lost, according to a new study published inClinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The death of a loved one is among the most painful and disruptive experiences a person can face. For most, the grief subsides over time. But those who suffer from complicated grief continue to yearn for the lost loved one, experience waves of painful emotion, and feel hopeless about the future.

Research suggests that that people who suffer from complicated grief, similar to those who suffer from post-trauamatic stress disorder or major depression, have difficulty recalling many of the specific memories of their past.

But there’s an exception: They often retain their ability to recall specific memories for events that include the lost loved one.

Graduate student Donald Robinaugh and professor of psychology Richard McNally of Harvard University were intrigued by this cognitive paradox, and it raised another question: Do thoughts of lost loved ones also shape how people with complicated grief think about the future?

To find out, the researchers recruited adults who had lost their spouse or life partner in the last one to three years. Some of the participants showed signs of complicated grief, while others showed signs of more typical bereavement.

The participants completed a series of tasks to assess their memory for past events and their ability to imagine future events, both with and without the deceased. They were asked to generate specific events based on positive cue words (e.g., safe, happy, successful, loved) and negative cue words (e.g., hurt, sad, afraid, angry).

Adults suffering from complicated grief showed deficits in their ability to recall specific autobiographical memories and to imagine specific events in the future compared to adults experiencing typical grief, but only for events did not include the deceased. They showed no difficulty generating events that included the partner they had lost.

“Most striking to us was the ease with which individuals with complicated grief were able to imagine the future with the deceased relative to their difficulty imagining the future without the deceased,” say Robinaugh and McNally. “They frequently imagined landmark life events – such as the birth of their first child or a 50th wedding anniversary – that had long since become impossible. Yet, this impossible future was more readily imagined than one that could, at that point, realistically occur.”

These findings point to a cognitive mechanism underlying the distressed yearning that is characteristic of complicated grief.

The research also underscores the importance of generating goals and aspirations for the future after the loss of a loved one. According to the researchers, “setting goals and working toward them may be an important component of natural recovery from the disruptive and painful experience of loss.”